(Massive spoilers for the Yakuza series as a whole)
Being a fan of this series since I got into it in 2019, I didn't think I would see the day the 20-year-old fledgling yakuza I came to know and love in 0 finally pass on the torch. I think this game is far from perfect in many regards, but I do think it fixes the send-off they tried to give Kiryu in 6.

First off, I do want to say this game's story is a bit all over the place and despite what RGG tried to advertise in Gaiden, other than introducing Hanawa and setting up why Kiryu is in Hawaii, that game holds hardly any importance to IW. That aside, this game definitely has its high points and made me break down in tears a few times. I genuinely think that Ichiban is the perfect replacement for Kiryu and I hope his future games go well too. As for the Dragon of Dojima, I think it's safe to say his time has come to an end, but I hope Kiryu is shown to be doing better at some point. I do think the ending didn't give me quite enough as to what I wanted from it, both in terms of what happens with Kiryu, and what becomes of Sawashiro after the fight with Ebina.

That being said, this game's story has its high moments as I said, and I think one of the biggest moments is Ichiban's unwillingness to go back on anyone even if they wronged him later. His unbending friendship towards Chitose and Eiji were what got me to break down, and I hope we get to see more of this later on. The game definitely has its comedic moments, too, like Seonhee talking about Joongi's DVDs he forgot to return, or Ichiban poking fun at Yamai for wanting Kiryu's muscles only for Yamai to respond with the coldest "That's not what I fucking meant."

The game has a stellar soundtrack, too, as do most Sega games do, outside of one particular song and I feel this to be one of the worst parts of the soundtrack: the Receive You track sounds like a FNF song to me. Other than that, I think this game has a great soundtrack, and it has my favorite of the Amon themes to date.

This game features 2 dubs, English and Japanese, like all the games that came after Judgment in 2018 (barring LaD: Ishin!). This comes with its ups and downs. On one hand, I love the English dub minus one character. Ichiban, Chitose, Tomizawa, Nanba, Zhao, they all have incredible English dubs. Unfortunately (and probably unsurprisingly), my least favorite character in English is Kiryu. After dropping Darryl in 7, RGG decided it would be a great idea to cast Yong Yea as the voice of the Dragon of Dojima, and he just... does not fit in the slightest. He's trying too hard to be Darryl, but it just ends up sounding flat. Shame that an otherwise perfect dub is ruined by one of the stars of the show being voiced by Yong Yea of all people. The Japanese dub is a lot better, though, as Kiryu is still voiced by Kuroda, who's been voicing him since the first game in 2005, and I would have no one else play the Dragon other than him.

Playing the game on PC didn't really mean any game-breaking graphical glitches or bugs, outside of one with the rain causing the game to drop into the single-digit frames for a while (or until you rebooted the game). Other than that, the game looks very pretty.

In terms of gameplay, this game is a MASSIVE upgrade from 7. Lots of new moves between the new jobs and old, lots of reworking for older jobs that reappear, and the combat lets you move around to actually line attacks up so you can more effectively pull off AoE attacks/skills. My favorite addition to the combat is Kiryu's specific job, the Dragon of Dojima. Outside of some very nitpicky criticisms I have with the job, I think they translated his combat style into the RPG format very well. My main complaint with the gameplay is that you can't swap between the two parties at the end of the game. This feels like something that should have been a part of the game as it is a part of every game with multiple protagonists.

In terms of content, this is by far the game with the most content out of the entire series. An implementation of the Sujimon to be used in battle, a Stardew Valley/Animal Crossing mode with building, exploring, and managing your own island resort, a Pokémon Snap-esque clone, 2 dungeons with 4 different difficulties and 10 floors for each dungeon, an entire side mode for Kiryu dedicated to his past memories as a way to go around and revisit the highlights of the life he's lived, and that's not even scratching the surface of what each of these modes provides. Some of it feels a bit bloated and overwhelming but when the game shines, it's brighter than the sun in the daytime sky.

For now, I think this is the end of my review, but I wanted to put this down into words for a while now. I don't think this game is quite exactly my favorite of the Yakuza games, but it is very close, and I am very glad they (hopefully) gave Kiryu the ending he deserves. Just let him live with his family happily for the rest of his life, please.